Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, U.S. President Donald Trump and the foreign ministers from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates after signing the Abraham Accords in Washington, Sept. 15, 2020 (AP photo by Alex Brandon).

Over the past 20 years, the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East has been transformed and reshaped. Old rivalries and historical enmities have hardened and deepened, driving strategic realignments and the emergence of a range of new or newly empowered actors from both within and outside the region. At the same time, political change has been harder to come by. With a few notable exceptions, waves of popular protest movements across the region in both 2011 and last year have failed to achieve the reforms and accountability they have demanded from their governments. In today’s big picture Trend Lines interview, […]

Refugees and migrants flee a fire burning at the Moria camp on Lesbos island, Greece, Sept. 9, 2020 (AP photo by Petros Giannakouris).

Until a couple weeks ago, Moria was the largest refugee camp in Europe. Situated on the Greek island of Lesbos, it housed roughly 13,000 people in facilities that were designed to hold 3,000. But starting on the evening of Sept. 8, a series of fires swept through Moria, reducing it to a smoldering ruin by the end of the week. Greek authorities have charged four young Afghan migrants with arson in connection with the fires. With nowhere else to go, thousands of Moria’s residents were left homeless, without access to basic services. Their plight casts a harsh and damning light […]

Mali’s coup leaders, left of table, meet with a high-level delegation from the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS, in Bamako, Mali, Aug. 22, 2020 (AP photo).

Following months of anti-government protests and calls for his resignation, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali was overthrown in a coup last month. Since then, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, a regional bloc of 15 countries that includes Mali, has been pressuring the ruling military junta to quickly hand power back to a civilian government. But last weekend, the junta defied ECOWAS by releasing a plan that would allow a military leader to oversee an 18-month transitional period before elections are held. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, WPR’s Elliot Waldman was joined by Alex […]

Then-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during a campaign launch in Brisbane, Australia, Sept. 1, 2013 (AP photo by Tertius Pickard).

“What we’ve seen is an infinitely more assertive China,” says Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former prime minister of Australia, in assessing the country’s evolution under Xi Jinping. As a result, Mr. Rudd is not surprised by how rapidly the consensus view of China has shifted, with strategic competition having replaced win-win cooperation as the buzzword in the capitals of Western and Asian democracies. “The principle dynamic here has been China’s changing course itself,” he says, as well as China’s emergence as a global power. “We have a new guy in charge who has decided […]

Students attend their first day of class since the pandemic paralyzed Spain six months ago, in Pamplona, Spain, Sept. 7, 2020 (AP photo by Alvaro Barrientos).

Millions of children headed back to school this week, but the environment they’ve returned to is anything but familiar. Those in classrooms are facing radically different health and safety protocols, while many others are still confined to their homes, using remote tools to communicate with their teachers and classmates. This week on the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s Elliot Waldman was joined by Rebecca Winthrop, senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, to discuss how COVID-19 is changing the face of education. Winthrop and her colleagues have found that the pandemic is exposing new […]

Elementary school students walk to classes in Godley, Texas, Aug. 5, 2020 (AP photo by LM Otero).

Education has traditionally been viewed as humanity’s great equalizer, providing children from less privileged backgrounds with the tools they need to achieve greater degrees of financial security and success in their chosen fields. Unfortunately, education can serve to entrench socio-economic disparities just as much as it alleviates them. That has become all too clear in recent months, as the families and schools with the greatest resources, both financial and technological, look to be the ones best-prepared to weather the coronavirus pandemic. But according to Rebecca Winthrop, senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, […]